How to Get Your Free Credit Report

Credit reports — which detail your financial history and credit activity and ultimately inform your credit score — wield tremendous power over our lives, affecting everything from whether we can get a credit card, buy or rent a home or even qualify for a job.

Ensuring that the information in those reports is accurate is an important first step toward protecting your choices, your dreams and your wallet.

Federal law allows you to get free copies of your reports under the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act (FACTA). The three major credit bureaus — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian — agreed to make their reports free on a weekly basis in response to the COVID pandemic in 2020. They have since made that policy permanent.

Here’s information on how to get them, along with details on what the reports cover and which 'free credit report' services to avoid.

How to get your free credit report

There are three ways to get your free reports:

Online: Go to AnnualCreditReport.com (This is the only site authorized under federal law to provide the free reports from the three credit bureaus.)

Telephone: Call toll-free 877-322-8228

Postal service: Fill out the Annual Credit Report Request Form and mail it to:

Annual Credit Report Request Service

P. O. Box 105281

Atlanta, GA 30348-5281

Whether you order it online, by phone or through the mail, you will be asked to provide the following information: 

• Full name
• Social security number
• Date of birth
• Current mailing address
• Previous mailing address (if at current address less than two years)

Despite the numerous advertisements and websites you see in the marketplace, AnnualCreditReport.com is the only place to get your free credit report, and the only source that's guaranteed by law to provide it. The other services that are advertised as free usually have hidden fees. According to the federal CFPB, some sites will only give you a free report if you buy other products or services. Others give you a free report, then bill you for services you have to cancel later.

Why is a credit report important?

Credit reports are detailed records of your past and present credit activity, and  your current credit situation. They include information about whether you repay your loans on time (or at all) and the current status of your credit accounts. This detailed history is used to calculate your credit score, which lenders use to assess your creditworthiness and the likelihood that you can and will repay a debt.

Credit reports are important because they can alert you to early signs of fraud and identity theft, and they provide lenders and landlords with a snapshot of how you handle money and pay bills, which can affect many aspects of your life.

Some areas of life that can be affected by your credit history:

Home buying: Whether you qualify for a mortgage to buy a home – and the amount of interest you will be charged to borrow that money

Renting a home: Whether you qualify to rent a home

Interest rates: What interest rate and fees you’ll be charged on credit card balances and consumer loans, including those for buying or leasing a car

Utilities, including cell phone service: Your credit history can be used by a utility or cell carrier to decide whether to establish service for you.

Insurance coverage: Insurance companies use credit reports to decide whether to sell you insurance and what rates you pay.

Employment: Some employers, especially those in financial services or sensitive jobs, check credit histories as part of their vetting process before they hire you.

What you get on your credit report: FACTA disclosures

The free reports you’ll get from the credit bureaus include your credit history and a summary of open and closed accounts. It's ideal for monitoring your credit on an ongoing basis to ensure there aren’t any irregular activities on your report.

Examples of irregular activity can include:

• Open accounts that you don't know about. This could happen if you were a victim of identity theft.
• Accounts showing late payments you don't know about. This could happen if you were traveling and forgot to make a payment, or your autopay wasn’t processed correctly.
• Accounts that have been sent to collections that you don't know about. This could happen with something like a parking ticket that you never knew you got because it fell off your car before you saw it. Even if something like this happened, the ticket issuer would still send it to collections.
• Tax liens that you don't know about. This could come from accidentally not paying all the taxes you had due because you or your tax preparer calculated your tax return incorrectly.

Reviewing your free credit report can help you monitor and control these items in advance of any home loan or other credit approval.

How do you know the free credit report is accurate?

You can determine whether the reports are accurate by checking them regularly.

Whether you choose to do that weekly, monthly or yearly is up to you. For example, a weekly check might be called for if you’re planning to apply for a mortgage or rent an apartment in the near future. It can also be used on a spot basis, say, for example, to spot fraud if you buy something from a vendor that turns out to be suspect.

What do you do if you find errors in your credit report?

If you find something wrong with your credit report, you'll be instructed to contact the original creditor, or the credit bureau that posted the error or irregularity. You should do so immediately. Your mortgage lender can also be a good resource to help correct credit report items you're questioning.

The federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has a detailed guide on how to dispute incorrect information, along with a sample letter for doing so.

Does your credit report include your credit score?

The reports provided by the three credit bureaus don’t include free credit scores, which are a single number based on information from your credit report. Each agency calculates their scores differently, and different industries may use other scores provided by the agencies when evaluating you for credit. 

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), you might be able to get a free credit score if you sign up for a credit monitoring service that checks your credit report for you. 

If you have a credit card, the company that issues it may give you free access to the credit score they use. Some may even include it on their monthly statements. And if you’ve been enrolled in credit monitoring by a company that experienced a security breach, you’ll usually be able to access your credit score from the agencies free of charge as part of that monitoring.

If you’ve applied for a credit card or loan, including a mortgage, the institution will often disclose your credit score as part of the decision-making process. And, not to make things too complicated, but lenders use different scores to make lending decisions so if you have a lender lined up, ask them which score they’ll be using for their decision so you know which one to buy.

Before paying to access your score, you should check your credit reports to see that all the information on which the score is based is accurate. 

The FTC recommends that you check any offers for free scores closely to make sure you will not be charged for credit monitoring. It also recommends that you exercise caution when sharing personal information with companies that don’t already have access to it.

Resources

For more information on your credit scores and how they impact the home lending process, also read our primer on Understanding Credit Scores. And for more information on how credit and debt can impact your home buying power, see this resource on our learning center. 

Staying on top of your credit report may seem like a hassle, but if you make it part of your routine, you can help ensure that you’re in the best position to move forward on your financial plans.